Orphans or not - Ellwood girls

[gaygirl]

I have hit a brick wall with three girls who were apparently orphaned and then travelled to NZ in 1899 to live with relatives.
The three girls  [Nelly  Ellwood  born London 1885
Father William Ellwood - Labourer

Martha Ellwood  born London 1886 -  father James Ellwood
Frances Ellwood born London 1890 - father James Ellwood

If these three girls were orphaned would they have been in an orphanage or perhaps looked after by friends or relatives until they emigrated.
On their death certificates they are listed as

Nelly Ellwood Gibson
Frances Ellwood Gibson.
They lived with Robert and Nora Gibson when they went to NZ so I can only guess they are somehow related to the Gibsons and went out to that family when they were orphaned.
I have spent years searching for a birth certificate for Martha Ellwood who says she was born in Croydon.
They should all appear somewhere in a 1891 census by my reckoning.
where do I look now.

[Welsh Jen]

Hi, Generally poor orphans were taken in by another member of the family. If this didn't happen they came under the care of the authorities.

There were care agencies around: Dr Barnardo is your best bet. Barnardo started a charity in 1866 to care for all those children who were orphans or whose parents were too poor to look after them properly.
There was a home for boys opened in Stepney London in 1870 and in 1873 a girls home opened at Barkinside in Essex. Dr Barnardo took before and after photographs of children he took in and recorded the work of his homes in  photographs after 1905 on film. However many orphanage records have not survived.

I hope some of this information has been of help to you. All the very best in your research

 

http://www.barnardos.org.uk/whoweare/history/index.jsp

[English Jen]

Just thought I'd let you know my experience with trying to find Dr Barnardo's records.  This is the reply I received from them:

Thank you for your recent enquiry regarding your relative. We shall be pleased to search our records on your behalf but in order to cover the cost of this service we will need to charge an initial non-refundable search fee of £20.00.

If the initial search is successful we offer an information package, the price is reflected in the level of work involved.

Then it goes on to give a form to fill in and then:

An initial non-refundable fee of £20.00 is payable in all cases to enable a
search to be made for your relative.

If we then identify your relative there is full history package (listed below) available to you at an additional cost.

FULL HISTORY PACKAGE                        £30.00
                                       
This will include:

1)        Admission History
2)        Record Book Entries (if available)
3)        Precis (if available)
4)        Individual Photographs (if available)
5)        Location Photographs (if available)
6)        Placement Details
7)        Information Sheets


It also states that it won't tell you about any brothers or sisters, so that's £20 and they might not find anything and then another £30 if they do.  Then if you want brothers/sisters that's £20 + £30 again.

I know that somebody has to look through the records etc. and then if they find anything to photocopy it, but don't you think £50 per person is a bit extortionate?  Needless to say, I haven't gone through with it, money just won't stretch that far.

English Jen.

[Welsh Jen]

Oh dear 

[corinne]

In the late 1800's a lot of single women ended up going to NZ - to marry and/or work for men who had already emigrated and started up farming.  The oldest of your girls could fit this, though the two younger would have been too young even to work.  It is also possible they went out to join a relative (cousin, aunt, uncle, etc) because it probably would have been perceived as a good opportunity for them to do well eventually.

There are quite a lot of shipping lists for travel from  UK to NZ in the late 1800's.  You might be lucky enough to find the three girls travelling with a family.  Not quite sure how you could find shipping indexes on the internet, but worth making a query on the emigration board. 

Have you tracked them further in NZ?